


God Gives the Talents You Need

by Exultation_of_the_Gryphon



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bodies are Seats for the Souls, Gen or Pre-Slash, Platonic Romance, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Relationship, Rebirth, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-05-28 07:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6320065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon/pseuds/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For my Circle's are a Line Connected by Design Prompt. </p>
<p>Everybody has just one soulmate - one person who can be their partner, their reason for being better, their best friend, their helpmate.</p>
<p>Tony never meets his and grows up knowing that his soulmate died when Tony was very young.</p>
<p>But sometimes miracles are just waiting for you to do your share.</p>
<p>A Tony and JARVIS soulmate fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Every Circle is Just a Line, Connected by Design](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6095333) by [Exultation_of_the_Gryphon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon/pseuds/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon). 



God Gives You the Talents You Need

 3/20/16

Tony was a smart little boy at four but he didn’t know what it meant when the curved stripe on his belly turned into a pair of circles.

All of the books his mother and his Jarvis read to him had little boys and girls with half circles – just like his had been just last night. The beach stories that showed adults with their marking showing had a circle, but only one, not two like his.

Just a little earlier he had been sleepily blinking into the half-lit darkness of his room. A Captain America Shield nightlight warded away his fear of the dark just like the Captain had kept the Nazis away from New York. He petted the soft flannel of his blanket, a deep non-color in the darkness, pinching the fabric between his fingers and rubbing it. He pulled the blanket down, taking a deep breath of the chilly night air in his room. He had just been pulling away his blanket to get up when his tummy lit up like a flash of lightning – fast’n bright and with a jolt. He’d yelped and fallen back on his pillow when it happened but moments later when he was blinking sunspots out of his eyes over he had tried to figure out what happened. It took a few minutes for his nightvision to come back and he had spent it feeling around the bed. Finally, still blinking and seeing white spots on his eyelids he had pulled up his shirt and seen that his mark had changed.

Tony had tried to think through what it might be but decided that he needed to go and ask. He dangled his feet over the edge of his bed and pushed off, feet plopping to the ground after his short fall. He yawned and grabbed his blanket. It was just a little too chilly. He trundled out of his room, door swinging open silently and padded down the hall to his parent’s room. Tony tapped the door very quietly before pushing it open. The open blinds on a window spilled streetlights onto the paired lumps of his blanket covered parents and he crawled up on the bed between them.

He yawned again and decided that maybe he’d ask in the morning. He shuffled his blanket around and curled up, careful not to touch his parents, listening to them breath as he settled back down until morning.

 

Year later, Tony didn’t really remember what happened in the morning, just that his mother had been very sad.

He did remember hearing what it meant in kindergarten a year later though. His teacher had taken a break from teaching everybody how to write the letters in their name and was talking about everybody’s soulmarks. He knew now, as an adult, that she had been very idealistic, when she had said that every kid had a half circle around their belly button that showed that they had a soul mate to find someday. There had been enough kids in the class – even a small class like it was that every form of the soulmark was present including his silver, double-circle dead mark. At least that’s what one of the older grade students had called it at recess.

 

A dead mark.

 

Tony didn’t have a soulmate to find because they were dead. As an adult, Tony had accepted that he had no fault in the fact that his soulmate was dead. He hadn’t even met them yet! But back then he had gone home in tears.

Even though he didn’t remember much of that night now, he remembered that he had resolved to be awesome. He’d blazed through classes then like he blazed through the night skies as Iron Man now – brilliant, fast, and reckless. He’d been in college before he’d hit sixteen and built his first simple AI before he was eighteen.

 

And something in his soulmark had changed. The second, little circle had a tiny segment turn gold when he had turned on Dummy for the first time. It had flashed dimly, catching his sleep deprived attention – as well as the attention of the little camera on the robot’s arm. The arm which clumsily tried to find the source and punched Tony in the stomach – prompting his cursing everything and calling the ‘bot ‘Dummy.’

But Dummy, with all of his poor coding and very simple emote programming had been there for Tony when he found out his parents (and his Jarvis) had died in a car crash.

 

Years went by, drunk, depressed, filled with hard work and flashes of energy and utter brilliance as he worked on this and that project for SI when Obie told him too anyway. He spent a lot of time trying to make Dummy’s code better, creating his other primary lab tool robots U and Butterfingers along the way.

Tony had found himself a Rhodey in college in a study group he’d led to get out of a homework assignment for a professor.

He’d found some spice for his life in Pepper, when she came in as an entry level accountant blisteringly berating the senior accountants in front of him over a nasty little math error.

And one night, he’d finally found his soulmate had been given a second chance when he had completed the AI he’d named JARVIS. He’d called out to the microphone and waited for a response from his Magnum Opus.

 

**“Sir?”**

 

The very moment that JARVIS began to speak to him his mark had flashed – bright and bold – like a lightning bolt from the blue text on the screen. He’d scrabbled at his shirt, yanked it up and stared at the unique mark on his stomach. His previously silver, double-circle dead mark was now the color of electrum and the little circle – his soulmate’s soul clinging to his – was outlined in a bright, clear blue. Just the same color he’d chosen to have JARVIS’s code display in once it had been written out on the screen.

 

He’d laughed and cried as the mobile ‘bots circled him, beeping worriedly and JARVIS hesitantly queried what his Sir might need.

 

**_“Sir?”_ **


	2. Just A Real Virtual Inquisitive co-Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written 4/13/16.

Eventually Tony recovered enough from his hysterics to take the just-onlined program through simple tasks to test its capabilities. In less than half an hour Tony was convinced he'd just created the Holy Grail of computer programing. The program was stiff and unwieldy in places yet but - dear God - he'd created life. He'd literally created his own soulmate!

This program, given time would doubtless be able to generate a personality, just like any infant. Tony knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Anyone else, under any other circumstance, would have had to work with it for months or years to know for sure.

But in this instance his deep misfortune had become an indicator of the height of his success! He knew from the first moment that his program was alive - an entity in its own right - and he couldn't wait for the moment when the program understood the flash at the moment of its awakening.

Tony had gently sent the mobile 'bots back to their charging booths, told the new AI that he'd be back in a few minutes, and hurried down the hall. He'd never really changed his old bedroom and the bookshelf in there still held dozens of children's books.

He picked a handful of old favorites and padded barefoot back over the ancient carpet and concrete of the hall and lab.

He made sure to have a camera pointed at his desk and sat down to read.

"JARVIS," He called out, "Can you see the illustrations of the book?"

"Yes, sir," JARVIS responded with a belated whir of the camera lens and a drone of DECTalk voice.

And then Tony started to read out loud to JARVIS. 

 

Simple, children's stories about soulmates were found within the first hours of JARVIS' memory files. Despite the early introduction, it took JARVIS nearly three years, eighty-one days, two hours, and twelve minutes to ask SIR if JARVIS himself had a soulmate.

JARVIS had been surprised when SIR had responded with a firm and confident, "Yes, J. You have a soulmate."

JARVIS had been expecting a negative. How could he - inhuman and mechanical - have a soulmate when even intelligent animals - things with beating hearts, fleshy brains, and umbilical cords - like apes, dolphins, and elephants did not?

Where was his mark? SIR had happily given JARVIS cameras that overlooked his physical form, and later, his back-up servers all over the world.

Not one had a curved line or circle outside the necessary components. And if he had, it would just be composed of paint, plastic, lights, or metal. It would not have the ability to 'magically' complete itself when he 'met' his soulmate. Humans had no idea how it worked and were unable to replicate it in any way outside their own personal markings. As brilliant as his own creator was, he was only human.

So JARVIS had been expecting a negative.

He took several moments to process the positive.

.

..

...

"SIR, if I have a soulmate, how can you be sure? Where is my mark?"

Tony stopped his fiddling with paper footballs and DUM-E complained and let the goal post he held droop when his creator looked away. He pushed away from the table, leaning back in his battered office chair.

"It's here J."

"SIR?"

Tony closed his eyes for a long moment. Here was his make or break moment. What would JARVIS do?

 

He breathed in and let it out slowly, counting it out.

 

He lifted his shirt.

 

"It's here JARVIS," He traced the burning blue circle that linked with his own electrum patina marking. "This blue mark is yours JARVIS. You have a soulmate."

 

He stared up at JARVIS's preferred lab view camera.

 

"And it's me."

 

 

 


End file.
